With the end of South Carolina’s 2025-2026 legislative session approaching on May 14th, we are starting to see which bills lawmakers will push past the finish line. All too often, our civil liberties do not appear on their list of priorities.
This week we’re highlighting some harmful bills that our state legislators are fast-tracking. They aren’t laws yet. We can still push back, and we can still take steps to reduce their harm. Stay with us.
A 25-foot safe space for police?
A bill that would threaten bystanders with jail time for standing too close to police officers has passed the House and Senate, with some amendments added in the Senate last week.
House Bill 4763 establishes a 25-foot bubble around police and threatens South Carolinians with up to 60 days in jail if we stand within that bubble after receiving an order to leave. The bill’s sponsors call it the Helping Alleviate Lawful Obstruction Act (“HALO”), but it is already illegal to obstruct law enforcement. This bill criminalizes standing in the wrong place and gives police a powerful tool to threaten bystanders.
You can continue writing to lawmakers to express your concerns about the so-called “HALO Act” using our form:
Last week the Senate amended the bill to remove a section that made it a crime to “harass or taunt” an officer. The bill remains harmful and unnecessary.
When one of the legislative chambers makes changes to a bill that originated in the opposite chamber, the original chamber gets a chance to either allow the amendments or object to them via a vote of “nonconcurrence.” If the two chambers can’t agree, they have to hash out their differences in a conference committee including members of both chambers.
It remains to be seen whether the House will concur with the Senate’s amendments on this bill.
Speaking of nonconcurrence ...
Two versions of a harmful bathroom bill
Lawmakers are also fast-tracking a bill that would discriminate against transgender students by forcing them into restrooms according to their sex assigned at birth or, possibly, into porta-potties. We got into it on an emergency podcast episode on March 27. You can listen to it on the While I Breathe podcast, on our website or wherever you get podcasts.
Our executive director Jace Woodrum, the first trans executive director of an ACLU affiliate, recorded this message responding to the cruelty and absurdity of this bill:
H. 4756 is a dangerous and insulting bill that applies to K-12 schools and colleges alike. We have the chance to reduce the harmof this bill before it passes.
In this case, the Senate amended the bill to make it worse and more harmful. Whereas the House version requires a single-user restroom in each building on a school campus, the Senate version requires one single-user restroom on the entire school campus – and it states that the restroom can be "temporary,” like a port-a-potty.
The Senate version adds insult to injury. We can reduce the harm of this bill by asking House representatives to insist on their version of the bill – not because it is a good bill, but because it is less bad. We set up a page to help you call your state House representative with a simple message: Keep the House version of H. 4756.
This is what we mean when we say “harm reduction.” Neither the House nor the Senate version of H. 4756 is a good bill, but we have to keep showing up to defend trans youth from the barrage of harmful legislation.
An ICE disaster waiting to happen
The House Judiciary Committee gave a favorable report last week to House Bill 4764, which would require every law enforcement agency that operates a correctional facility to sign an agreement and do the work of ICE. The bill can come up for debate on the House floor any day now.
This bill is a looming disaster for public safety, immigrants’ rights, civil liberties, and public trust in law enforcement – not to mention a legal liability and a fiscal time bomb for local law enforcement agencies that sign up. You can read more about the dismal track record of ICE collaboration via the 287(g) program in the ACLU report “Deputized for Disaster."
More than 1,400 South Carolinians have written to their lawmakers opposing this harmful bill. We need you to help keep the pressure on. Use this form to write to your state House representative. Tell them you want a No vote on forced ICE collaboration.
There is still time to stop the worst outcomes in our Statehouse this year. Whether we are fighting for immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights, or the First Amendment right to record police, we are staying and working to protect our fellow South Carolinians every step of the way.
